


to the death: collection

by boyoongi



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Crime RIngs, Cute nurse - Freeform, Drama, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Immortality, Japan, M/M, Mentioned Kidnapping, Obsession, Rape/Non-con Elements, Unrequited Love, Unstable relationship, age gap, teen pretty boy, underground japan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14141025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyoongi/pseuds/boyoongi
Summary: stories of a teenage boy and his firebreathing friend girl as they live out their lives in an underground fighting ring, led by an obsessive and sadistic but strangely endearing CEO.





	1. introduction and explanation

**Author's Note:**

> hello !! this is a series that i’ve been dwelling on for a long time, so i’m very happy to be sharing it here. since the concept is kind of confusing and i intend on piling on a bunch of short stories with little to no context, i’ve used the first chapter to explain the basic things so that no one is confused! :”) if you have any questions feel free to ask me in the comments so i can answer and make it clear for everyone else as well. thank you !

Kidnapping and covering it up was their specialty.  
It was necessary for the Nakamuras to do their business, so of course they had perfected the sinister art after nearly ten years of practice— and even though the risk was high, the profit they made was well worth it.

They catered to high profile people with dirty money and a taste for violence, just like them. That nasty, insatiable demographic was always raring to go, lining the Nakamuras’ pockets with the average person’s yearly salary after each show.  
The shows themselves were one on one battles that happened multiple times during the week, but always after 9 o’clock. They were bloody and shock inducing, dramatic and feral, but still unlike other underground rings that dabbled in the same genre; they featured a new kind of contestant.  
The fighters under Nakamura Ent. were special and never before seen, plucked from their hometowns and thrown into the ring with only their natural instincts and a hefty prize guiding them. Their “special qualities” ranged from things that almost seemed only like quirky talents to full on superhuman abilities, such as firebreathing, transfiguration of the body, and even immortality. The enterprise’s ability to find powerful potential contestants and pick them up before anyone else was really what set them apart, and what made their business so lucrative. Everyone wanted a ticket to go see freaks of nature battle to the death.

The way they ran their show was incredibly well thought out, too, with motivation for their fighters taken into consideration. A fight wouldn’t be fun to watch if no one really put their heart into it, right?

So, a point system and a leaderboard were developed. If you render your opponent unconscious during your match, you would collect 50 points— if you kill your opponent, you would collect 150 points. If you yourself were sufficiently K.O.’d, then you would lose 50 points. If you died, you would be taken off the leaderboard and replaced with another contestant as soon as possible. Simple enough.  
To really get everyone out there and eager to fight, there was also a promise: if you manage to collect 10,000 points, your freedom will be granted! You wouldn’t have to answer to Tsuo Nakamura anymore, and you could go home with only the threat of death for snitching hanging over you. Other than that, you would never have to think of the battle royale ever again.

All of the 100 fighters being essentially kept prisoner there would have salivated at the thought of being let free, so it ensured that all of them would try their best to rack up as many points as possible— through public murder.

Another motive for them was the fact that the higher on the scoreboard you were, the better housing you got while in the business; the Nakamura’s provided nice hotel rooms to those at the top, and what were only comparable to prison cells for those barely scraping by with 0-100 points.

The old CEO of Nakamura Ent. was a broad, stiff, callous man by the name of Daisuke. He built the business from the ground up, made a name for himself, and earned a reputation for being ruthless in the way he ran things.  
His reign of terror lasted only around five years, however, until he fell victim to an unexpected illness (some still speculate that he was poisoned, being that he had his fair share of enemies) and passed the empire down to his only son, who was turning 23 at the time.

His son, Tsuo, was a force to be reckoned with. Even more dangerous than his father, Tsuo was incredibly charming and efficient, but was also delusional in his own way and carried a raging sadistic streak— he made the arena lively and sickly entertaining, drawing in the biggest crowds the enterprise had ever seen with his flashy good looks and an almost cheerful disposition.

Some would say he looked like his father, while others would disagree.  
He was slim and tall with broad shoulders and crisp tailored suits, his skin was tan, his hair was dark. He kept it parted in the middle so it framed his face and swept along the tops of his ears like silky curtains, the undercut around the back of his head always manicured as well; his smile was wide, bright, and brought on the ghost of dimples on his cheeks. His eyes were dark and playful.  
After Daisuke’s death, the place flourished (even in comparison to its prior success)— the fights were crazier than ever, more profit was being brought in, and two new powerful fan favorites were introduced: Valentina Mikhailov and Johann Kang.


	2. Johann; Matthew

Johann stood, exasperated, breathing in heavy pants that hammered inside his delicate chest.   
His dark eyes scanned the scene before him: a wide, monochromatic arena filled to the brim with applauding fans and bloodstains. It was sickening. 

After every fight, unless it was particularly easy, the boy's mind would be reeling with the heavy atmosphere of blood and sweat and so much unnecessary noise that his body seemed to tremble with its vibrations.   
His head had already gotten used to the taxation and would instead choose to block everything out in favor of listening to his rapid heartbeat pound like a drum in his ears, feeling the sweat bead down his neck as well as the dull sting of blood pearling out of his cuts and scrapes. It was much better, easier, than listening to the sounds of what seemed more like rabid animals than people, he thought.  
If he dwelled on the fact that people found this entertaining for too long, he was sure he'd feel sick. 

 

Johann heard a familiar voice boom over the loudspeaker, and he heard people passionately, fondly screaming his name. 

It really meant nothing. He didn't want any sort of support or reassurance for his actions, as doing what he had to do and then forgetting about it was his favorite way to cope.   
The praise only acted as a reminder of his staggering morality and of the atrocities he'd been forced to commit.

 

After letting his eyes flutter over to glance at the scoreboard, just to check if another 150 points were added to his slot, the boy turned his black-tshirt-clad back to the raging crowd and the burning lights.  
The gates were lifting and the exit was waiting, beckoning with its safe, dark hallway; head down and small hands finding their way into the pockets of his shorts, Johann left the arena. 

 

Matthew, one of the newest contestants to arrive there, was nineteen years old, blonde, a little stocky, and intimidating.  
From a young age he'd been blessed with a handsome face, stern looks, and a personality to match. Even though he was scared out of his mind, he was able to pretend like he wasn't with surprising skillfulness; it kept him from not seeming too vulnerable while in that completely foreign and dangerous environment. It was his only defense mechanism. 

His toughness only lasted so long, however, until he completely melted at the presence of a cute little freckled nurse who looked at him just the right way while she bandaged his arm after his first fight.  
Said nurse had him standing against the door of the clinic, two lukewarm cups of coffee in his hands, waiting for her to clean the blood off of that creepy kid who had just killed somebody— a, debatably, innocent man— in front of hundreds of people. His name was Johann, the blonde believed.   
Matthew watched as her soft fingers carefully pressed a cotton ball to the black haired boy's frighteningly pale cheek, and wondered why she was being so gentle with someone so horrible. Why was violence the norm in that god forsaken place?

 

"Tss-- it stings.."  
The voice was boyish and distant, even though he was only a few steps away. 

"Sorry.!  I'm trying to be gentle, here.. Bear with me..."

 

The blonde's expression turned calculating as he brought his own too-bitter coffee up to his lips and took a sip, eyes zeroing in on the nurse's current patient.   
Through Matthew's distaste he was able to register the elegance in Johann's features: the softness of his jawline, the tenderness of his skin as the nurse worked against it and the contrasting red of his lips to the rest of his nearly full black and white color palette.   
He then, once again, heard the voice of the very boy he was staring at so intently.

 

"Thank you, Molly."   
It was a small mutter, monotonous. 

"You got it, kiddo."    
The raven haired woman gave Johann a smile after carefully smoothing out the pink bandaid onto his cheek.  
Johann slowly stood from the hospital bed and onto his sneaker-clad feet, speaking as if he was dismissing himself, "I'll see you later, then."

 

"Uwaa, not yet-!"  

A woman's voice spoke up quickly at the news, and Matthew gave a halfhearted glance in her direction. At that point, after all he had seen that day, he was exasperated.   
She was the one he had noticed was always at Johann's side, ever since he arrived there, tall and limber looking. Her short hair was a pale green and her skin was very yellow toned, but not overbearingly so or jaundice-like-- a heart in bright red was drawn, or tattooed, maybe, on her lips. Eyes big and wide with more prominent bottom lashes than top ones, she struck Matthew as incredibly strange looking; he wouldn't even have thought to address her as female, being that she had a very androgynous facial structure and body type, until he heard her name was Valentina, then just assumed.   
She protested Johann's departure with a whine. 

"I wanna stay in here.."

So, their togetherness was understood. 

Raising a gentle, straight eyebrow at her, the boy paused with his hand loosely on the doorknob. "Stay here if you want, really, it doesn't matter— I'm just trying to get some sleep, and pretend there aren't eyes on me at all times." His narrow shoulders slouched as he looked at her and spoke.  A more honest reason for his departure, undisclosed to everyone else, was that there were too many people in the small room, and Matthew was staring at him.  It was weird, and he didn’t like it. 

The girl let out a sigh of defeat and crossed her arms, posture strangely perfect for someone just hanging around.  "Fine.  But only because you need it... Keeping me up all night with that reading light of yours, y'know, if you just got to sleep at a normal time you wouldn't have to take so many naps in the first place—“  
"I don't need to be told again, come on Val.." Johan rubbed the back of his neck and averted his eyes, letting himself lean lazily against the door and push down the knob slowly with his weight. 

“Go get some rest, Jo. It’s good for you.”


End file.
